The road stretched out ahead, empty and exposed in the freezing grey morning. Behind him, five police cars closed in. Blue lights flashed in the mirror.

He pushed the accelerator down.

Donato was eighteen when he left Salerno with thirty-five dollars in his pocket and a debt to his family to repay. He was twenty when he was sentenced to three years inside the Manhattan Metropolitan Detention Center. By his late twenties, he had stopped being a small operator and become the man brokering kilos into Naples, Rome, and Milan through a network that reached into Venezuelan jungles and the upper echelons of Serie A football clubs.

Marco died. Javier died of cancer. Carlos was extradited to Santo Domingo. Alejandro is still in a Colombian maximum-security prison.

Donato is the one who walked away clean.

AKA Montana — The Rise and Fall of an Italian Drug Lord is based on the true story of the boy from Salerno who became him.